06 October,2012 12:48 AM IST | | Agencies
Counter-terrorism officers have arrested eight more people over the attempted murder of an Indian general in central London.
Return to home soil: Former army officer Lt Gen KS Brar, who survived an attack in London, landed at the Mumbai airportu00a0on October 3. Pic/Sayed Sameer Abedi.
A gang of four people attacked Lieutenant General (Retd) Kuldeep Singh Brar as he walked with his wife on Old Quebec Street near Marble Arch on Sunday night, slashing his neck.
Detectives are keeping an open mind as to the motive, but Brar was involved in a military operation against Sikh militants in Armritsar in 1984 that left an estimated 1,000 people dead.
Two people were arrested in Hillingdon, west London, shortly after midnight on Thursday - a 42-year-old man on suspicion of assisting an offender and a 38-year-old woman on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Three men aged 42, 37 and 30 were detained in Kensington and Chelsea, London, and another two aged 32 and 31 in Holland Park, west London, on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.
The eighth person, a man aged 20, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender in Holland Park.u00a0Addresses in South Shields, Birmingham and London are also being searched as part of the investigation.
This follows four arrests made on Wednesday in the Midlands - a 33-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman in Wolverhampton, and two men aged 34 and 25 in West Bromwich, all on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Detectives want to speak to passers-by who stopped to help 78-year-old Brar, who was visiting London, and anyone else who saw what happened.
The attackers were all Asian, were wearing dark clothes and had long beards. One of them was youngeru00a0and slimmer than the other three.
NIA may probe attack on Brar
The government is contemplating sending a team of the National Investigation Agency to Mumbai to speak to Lt. Gen KS Brar (Retd), who faced a deadly attack in London by suspected Khalistani terrorists.
The Union home ministry has asked the NIA, tasked to handle special cases concerning national security, to look into the matter.
